DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW
LISA G. RILEY
Copyright © January 2012 by Lisa G. Riley at Smashwords
All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be reproduced scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Lisa G. Riley.
Cover Artist: Whit Holcomb
This e-book is a work of fiction. While it might refer to actual historical events and actual locales might be mentioned, the names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, or locales is completely coincidental.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my family, which is not near as crazy as Lily’s and Smith’s, but we’re colorful enough.
In remembrance:
Mrs. Gloria Riley
Mrs. Helen Mitchell
Mrs. Geneva Cravens
I miss you three wonderful ladies every day.
Chapter One
Christmas Season, 1981
“See the pretty baby, darling? See the pretty baby? Say ‘pretty baby’. Come on, say it. Pre-tty bay-bie.”
Held suspended over the bassinet as he was, two-year old Smith Cameron dutifully repeated the words his mother encouraged him to say as he stared at what appeared to be a little brown ball buried in a red blanket. Besides the silky pink bow holding the fluffy black hair on top of its head, his toddler brain could find nothing really interesting about the baby, but he grinned because his doting mother and auntie had both rewarded his compliance with kisses and snuggles.
“That’s right, baby boy,” he listened to his mother say as he continued to watch the ball to see if it would do something interesting. “That’s the pretty baby Lily, and she’s going to be yours to take care of forever and ever. She’s a very special Christmas present. She’s an early Christmas present!”
Smith perked up at the words Christmas and present. He was eager to experience this phenomenon that he’d been hearing so much about lately. The books his mother read to him made him impatient for the presents and the mysterious man in the red suit to get there. But then he was distracted by his auntie as she appeared to chastise his mother. “Now, Darla, while we want Smith to love her, let’s not go all medieval on them and betroth them.”
“Oh, I know,” his mother said. “But wouldn’t it be wonderful if they did grow up and marry?”
Smith didn’t understand a word they were saying and he was beginning to get tired of not having this Christmas thing happen. He screwed his face up, prepared to wail, but then the baby did something wholly familiar to him and he grinned. Uncle Rowdy had told him all about this. “Pwetty baby fawt,” he said as he wrinkled his nose at the odor before giggling uncontrollably. He clapped his hands in delight. “Mewwy Chwistmas!”
***
Thanksgiving 2011
Muscles tense with fear and nervousness; Lily Carstairs tried to blend with the shadows as she stared across the street at her target. The three-story house was a gorgeous beacon in the dark night. She took a deep breath, and silently told herself to calm down. She’d been trying to mentally prepare herself for this task for days, but the risk in it was so high that she hadn’t really succeeded. She pulled black leather gloves over sweaty palms and then reached up to assure herself—for at least the third time—that her black watch cap was pulled on tight. “So far from home,” she murmured in a voice that shook with nerves as she took one last look around the tony street, crowded with some of Chicago’s priciest real estate. It was quite removed from her middle class neighborhood back home in Sheffield-Chatham.
She swallowed hard before taking a deep bracing breath. “It’s now or never, Lily girl.” And so saying, she took off, her long legs eating up the distance between the streets in seconds. She ran cross the expansive lawn, did double-time up the stairs and finally took a flying leap to land on one of four wide brick posts that bordered the portico of the house. Another jump and she was grabbing onto two rungs of the limestone railing that ringed the balcony of the master bedroom on the second floor.
“Shit!” One hand slipped and she hung suspended in the air for a moment as the triceps muscle of her right arm shook with the effort of taking on the extra weight. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” Panic was all consuming when her body began to swing a bit from the force. Grunting softly through gritted teeth, Lily desperately flung her left hand up to catch hold again and finally was able to pull herself up and over the rail to land lightly on the balcony.
Unable to take even a few seconds to calm her racing heart, in motions that appeared almost seamless, she pulled a black baseball cap from her back pocket and pulled it on over the watch cap. Just as quickly, she found a hidden button in the cap’s bill and pressed it. A tiny row of small lights sewn into the edge of the bill flicked on and she breathed a sigh of relief. She’d ordered the cap online and had been a little concerned about its effectiveness. She bent to study the lock on the French doors. “Steady as she goes,” she murmured as she pulled out her burglar tools and went at the lock.
The chintzy lock easily gave way. “Thank God.”
She turned the hat off, pulled one of the doors open, put her head in just enough to look around and then crept inside when she saw that the room was empty. She could hear muffled voices coming from downstairs and prayed that the fancy Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t breaking up just yet. She turned her hat back on and did a slow turn so the lights illuminated whatever her gaze landed on.
She ran her gaze dismissively past the connecting bath. “Bingo,” she whispered to the two doors of the closet. “I know you hold all the secret goodies – enough for someone like me to live the rest of her life on.”
Lily actually only wanted one thing: the Watley diamond. Famous for its age, beauty and size, the seventy carat gem had been set in platinum by order of Andre Watley more than fifty years before. He’d given it to his wife on the occasion of the birth of their only child.
Her goal in sight, Lily’s breathing accelerated and she started towards the closet. Suddenly, light exploded around her, blinding her for a few seconds and she panicked again. Heart hammering, she turned back towards the French doors. She heard the unmistakable click of a gun and stiffened, stopping dead in her tracks.
“Hold it right there!” A gruff, husky voice commanded. “Take another step and there’ll be a bullet in the back of your head. You feel lucky?” Abrupt unnerving silence and then a soft, satisfied, “Punk?”
Tired and miserable, Lily sat and willed herself not to cry while her warden stared at her in severe disapproval. She wanted to close her eyes, but made herself return the stare.
“I think you actually might be a candidate for Joliet. Seeing as how you were caught right at the scene, you’d fit in with all the rest of the criminals.”
Lily said nothing, just stared back and resisted the urge to say something snide in return. Her first mission and she’d failed. She’d been so sure she could get away with it.
“You’re lucky the homeowner didn’t panic and blow your fool brains out –”
This time Lily couldn’t hold back and sighed with impatience. She rolled her eyes at the tall, thin woman standing over her. “Oh, come on, Gran. Given that it was a fake gun, you’re exaggerating a bit, aren’t you?” she said in a stifled voice, her disappointment in herself almost choking her.
“You’re lucky it wasn’t real!” Candace Carstairs retorted, her nut brown eyes flaring while two spots of red flagged her light brown cheeks, highlighting her anger.
Lily shook her head. “Of course it wasn’t real! Aunt Amelia doesn’t actually have a real gun,” she said, referring to Amelia Watley, the owner of the house, her grandmother’s best friend since childhood and most recently, Candace’s roommate. The two widows had decided to live together a few months before, saying that they’d promised each other years ago that if both of their husbands died before them they’d take a page from the “Golden Girls” book and become roommates.
“That. Is not. The point!”
Candace continued to fuss and Lily did her best not to take offense. She knew the older woman was simply worried about her and her recent choice of career. Lily resorted to a tactic from her childhood. She partially tuned out her grandmother’s words, waited for a time when it seemed appropriate to respond and then did so. “Yes, Gran.”
“Did it even occur to you that you might get caught?”
“Yes, Gran.”
“And what was your plan in that highly likely event? Bat those big brown eyes of yours and cry until someone took pity on you?”
My plan was to come along quietly, just as I did tonight, Lily thought, but what she said was, “No, Gran.”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“No, Gr – I mean, yes, Gran.”
Her grandmother snorted and Lily sighed again. She reminded herself that Candace loved her and had helped her a great deal in getting her detective’s license. It’s the only thing that made Lily keep her mouth shut and let Candace get it all out. Besides, all signs pointed to the rant winding down.
“And another thing, young lady,” Candace began and Lily grimaced and looked over at the cherubic face of Amelia Watley who smiled and winked at her. Lily suppressed a grin. “By the way, Aunt Amelia,” she said quickly when Candace finally paused for breath again, “You need a better lock on those French doors upstairs. Any criminal –”
“Which brings us back to you,” Candace said smugly, making Amelia chuckle appreciatively.
Lily whipped her head around to look at her grandmother. “I’m not a criminal! I was just practicing in case I ever have to break in somewhere for a client.”
Her grandmother rolled her eyes and sat down next to her. Lily looked at her and knew she was still in store for “a good talking-to,” as her grandmother called her little scoldings, but Lily really just wanted to hug her. Candace was her biggest supporter and always had been. It had, in fact, been her idea that Lily attempt to break into Amelia’s house sometime during Lily’s two-week visit just to see if she could get away with it.
Lily didn’t bother to point that out. “What gave me away?” she asked before her grandmother could speak, and turning back to Amelia, Lily grasped her hand and gently pulled her down to the sofa so that she had an eighty-year old widow sitting on either side of her. “I mean, when I left after dinner earlier you thought I was going to a movie. How did you know I was upstairs? I know you didn’t hear me.”
Amelia opened her mouth to answer, but Candace beat her to it. “Humph. We heard you all right. It sounded like a herd of elephants was up there!”
Frowning, Lily looked at her grandmother again -- this time with pure disbelief. “You couldn’t have! I was as light as a feather! All of those years of ballet and gymnastics couldn’t have been that --”
Amelia’s husky chuckles filled the room again. “Your grandmother is joking, dear. We didn’t hear you. Candace figured you’d be back to try to break in tonight. After all, you haven’t much time left on your little vacation. You’ll be going home to Sheffield-Chatham day after tomorrow.”
“Yes, that and the fact that you forget that I know my granddaughter.”
Lily looked sheepishly at her grandmother. “What do you mean? I really gave myself away that badly?”
Candace pursed her lips. “Noooo,” she drawled, “I never suspected anything, even though you -- a self-described fashion-connoisseur-on-a-tight-budget -- were apparently willing to walk eight to ten blocks in two feet of snow wearing a pair of two hundred dollar sneakers.”
“Now, now, Gran. No need for that disapproval I hear in your voice. I told you I got them at a huge discount. Huge,” Lily repeated distractedly as she looked down at the black and silver sneakers on her feet. She curled her toes in delight. She adored the shoes. She’d fallen in love with them the minute she’d seen them. As she recalled that particular love-at-first-sight moment, she felt that same familiar rush she always felt when she got a bargain…the triumph…the joy…the -- “Ow!” Lily rubbed her arm where she’d been pinched. “Gran!”
“Focus, Lily Elise, f-o-c-u-s,” Candace enunciated the letters while also signing them right in Lily’s face. “Focus!”
Lips twitching at her grandmother’s brand of sarcasm, Lily kissed her cheek. “Must I? I mean, really, just look at them, Gran!” she demanded and stuck her feet out to turn them side to side for a view of the shoes. “They’re so very purrty. And even with all their adorableness, they served my purpose so well tonight that -- okay, okay,” she hastened with a laugh and held her hands up in defense when Candace made a pincer-like motion with her fingers.
Candace shook her head. “Will you quit acting so empty-headed? I swear I don’t know why I put up with you.”
“Beats me,” Lily said with a shrug. “Must be something in the water,” she posited and went back to the conversation they’d been having before she’d been so gloriously distracted. “Where were we? So you made me for a fraud when I told you I was going to walk to the movies?”
“The fact that you were barely out the door before you pulled on that watch cap was another clue. And by the way, where did you get that cap with the lights?”
“I bought it online. I was surprised it worked as well as it did because I got it pretty cheaply. I had my pen light just in case, though. As for the watch cap, I had to be as incognito as possible.”
“I realize that, but since you were a little girl you’ve refused to wear winter caps for fear of messing up that precious hair of yours. Those little fits you used to throw --”
“I don’t know what you’re talking --” Lily began with all the dignity she could muster.
“I’m afraid the fights you had with your mother are almost legendary, dear,” said Amelia, who was from Sheffield-Chatham and still kept a house there even fifty-five years after moving to the big city. “No point in denying them.”
“Anywaaay,” Lily sing-songed under her breath. “So, I was found out because of my own fabulous sense of fashion, hmm? It won’t happen again, trust me.”
With a worried frown, Candace said, “Let’s hope you’ll never have to do any breaking and entering to get a job done.”
“Yeah, let’s hope,” Lily echoed, wondering how long it would be before she got her first job. “I can’t wait,” she murmured as she thought about her newly minted private detective’s license.
Chapter Two
Christmas 1984
“Lily, Lily, Lily!” Smith said in excitement as he jumped up and down.
“Yes, darling. Lily’s here,” his mother said and Smith felt her fingers gently brush through his hair. “And so are your Auntie Glenda and Uncle Peter. But it’s a long way from Sheffield-Chatham to Dallas, and Lily’s probably tired and napping. Don’t get upset if she doesn’t come down right away.”
“No, Lily won’t nap. She wants to see me.”
“Where’s my Smif? I want my Smif!”
Smith smiled smugly at his mother before turning towards the demanding toddler voice. “Here I am, Lily,” he called. When Lily turned around to see him and her face lit up with happiness, Smith grinned.
“Look at my pretty hair, Smif! And my dress, too! Lookie, lookie, lookie!” she said as she ran towards him as swiftly as her three-year old legs would carry her.
Smith’s grin widened in awed delight when he took in her hair and what she was wearing. It was a velvety green dress embroidered with bows. The bows covered the dress and seemed to be in every color imaginable. A matching green velvet bow caught her hair up in a high ponytail from which curls spilled all around her head, but it was all the bows that impressed him the most.
“Wow, Lily-bud!” he exclaimed as they wrapped arms around each other. “You look just like one of my presents!”
December 10th, 2011
Like everyone else in Palmer’s Apothecary, Lily paused in what she was doing when she heard the sound of glass shattering outside the shop. And then there was the sound of a car alarm going off -- the same alarm that every car owner in the world seemed to have. In less than ten seconds, the sound became annoying.
“Dude,” Quincy said dispassionately, “that can’t be good.”
She turned to her nineteen-year old cousin who was a sweet kid, but in the best of times tried her patience with his teenage façade of studied indifference and his ubiquitous use of the word ‘dude’ in all its various forms (dude, dudette and the always-popular: duuuude!). But today was really trying because he’d shown up on her doorstep early that morning, claiming that he’d be her assistant. She was opening her office for the first time today and Lily had been too excited to call her parents or his to yell at them for interfering. She knew that they had some silly idea that Quincy would protect her during what they viewed as just another one of her larks in her never ending quest to find herself.
As the lone female born in her generation, Lily had grown used to this kind of over-protective behavior from her parents, aunts and uncles, but she was not going to let them ruin things for her. If she’d shown Quincy the door, one of her older, more difficult male cousins -- there were nineteen of them -- would have just appeared to take his place, and she didn’t want that. So, she’d determined that she’d put up with Quincy for a few hours. She knew she could get rid of him easily; it only took a little planning.
Lily smiled at the pharmacist. “Thanks so much, Ms. Palmer. I’ll see you.” Catching up her package, she made her way through the store, leaving Quincy to follow. She hummed as she thought about all of her plans for the day. Absently smiling her thanks at Quincy, she walked through the door he held open for her. She noticed that the snow fall had picked up while she’d been in the store and grinning, she threw her head back to catch a few of the fat flakes on her tongue.
“Ugh. Dude that is so nasty,” Quincy began, “Don’t you know how dirty --”
Laughing, Lily rolled her eyes at him. “Shut up, Quince. I’m feeling too good today for one of your dismal scientific facts.”
“But --”
“One more word and you’ll find yourself with a mouth full of snow.”
“I’d murderize ya, doll,” he teased in his best gangster voice.
“Oh, that’s doubtful, Bugsy,” she returned, “highly doubtful.” Laughing again, she turned towards the curb where she’d parked, and stopped dead in her tracks, all the blood draining from her face as she got a good look at her car. Stunned, she stared at the wreckage.
Her baby. Her precious, brand-spanking new, right off the assembly line, still has that new car smell baby.
From behind her, she heard her cousin catch his breath to speak. “Du --”
Her hand whipped back and to the side to cover his mouth. “Do not, for Lord’s sake,” she said through clenched teeth, “demonstrate your remarkable grasp of the obvious right now!”
Peripherally, she noticed that there were several people around who all seemed to be unnaturally still, but that was all ignored as she focused on her car. Taking a deep breath, she stalked over to it. She’d parked it at the curb and she remembered her earlier glee at finding a space right in front of the store and swore silently. Yeah, some luck. The windshield of her Ford Fusion was smashed, the obvious destructive force being a huge painted red stone, which was firmly entrenched in the center of the shattered glass. With numerous long lines of cracks spreading out from the stone, it looked like a grotesque version of a child’s drawing of the sun.
“Oh, my God, PYT,” she said in horror to the red car. “Who did this to you?”
Her words seemed to be the catalyst for the silent bystanders to start talking and the area suddenly erupted with voices, all trying to be heard at once.
“He did it!”
“It was that man there; the one down the street.”
“It was him.”
“Wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but he threw that rock like a major league pitcher.”
“Did she just call her car PYT? As in Michael Jackson-PYT? Seriously?”
Lily ignored the bystander who sounded like he was questioning her sanity and raised her head to follow the direction of the pointing fingers, her gaze traveling down the street. She skipped over the man dressed in a Santa suit, her mind automatically tagging him as harmless. Just as her eyes began to wander past him, however, something clicked in her brain. She frowned, blinked and took her gaze back to him. Blinked twice more. Frowned more intently.
What the...?
Her mind was playing tricks on her. It simply had to be; otherwise she was actually staring at Santa as he gyrated his hips and gave her the finger -- one from each hand. Mouth agape, Lily looked at him some more and then glanced around to make sure she wasn’t the only one seeing him.
“No sense in looking at me like that, hon,” an old man said with a nod of sympathy when her confused gaze latched onto his. “It won’t change the fact that Santa is doing a truly fantastic job of fucking with you. What’d you do to him?”
Insulted, Lily scowled at him. “What’d I do to him?! I didn’t --” she stopped trying to explain and looked back at Santa, who now had an index finger in each ear and was sticking his tongue and ass out and wiggling them both. Flabbergasted, she waited for him to sing the standard “Na-nah, na-nah, na-nah.” He didn’t, but Lily didn’t think she could be any more shocked than she already was.
She was wrong.
“That’s right, little lady; Santa’s aim was dead-on and my pretty stone broke your fancy-schmancy hybrid’s window. You gonna stand there all day lookin’ dazed and confused, or are you gonna do something about it?” After delivering his challenge in a gravelly voice, Santa doffed his hat, took a bow, turned tail and ran. “Let’s see if those long legs of yours are good for anything besides turning men’s heads,” he called over his shoulder.
Lily could do nothing but stare after his fleeing figure, which somehow managed to look graceful.
“Duuude, Santa can haul ass!”
Quincy’s awed comment brought Lily out of her shock enough for her to turn to him to say...what? Her brain would not function.
Quincy forestalled whatever she was going to say with an up-lifted hand, palm out. “Don’t lecture me now, Cuz. Dude is sooo getting away. I’ll call the police, you go get him --”
“Me!” Lily interrupted.
Sheepishly, Quincy said, “I might be ten years younger than you, but you’re faster. I’d never catch him and besides, it’s your car and you’re the one who ran track in high school. You’d better hurry,” he warned her. “That little fucker dude has got some serious speed!”
Lily turned back to see nothing of the renegade Santa but furry white ankle cuffs and shiny black boots as he sped around the corner, one foot and leg lifted to catch his balance as the other foot skidded because he was moving so damned fast. She shook her head in disbelief. “It’s like watching a cartoon,” she muttered bemusedly, almost expecting to hear the screeching sound of burning rubber and see little plumes of smoke fly out from under his foot.
Shoving her package, purse and car keys into her cousin’s chest so that he was forced to bring his arms up to hold them, she said, “Here. Turn off the alarm and call the police, body guard slash assistant. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She had the grim pleasure of watching him lower his eyes in embarrassment before she turned away.
And feeling that there was nothing else she could do, Lily Elise Carstairs, newly-minted, bad-ass private detective clenched her jaw, stretched her legs and took off to run a renegade Santa to ground.
Huffing and puffing, Lily flashed through a group of startled pedestrians, turning to murmur a hurried, but heartfelt, “Oh, sorry...so, so sorry” when she felt one of her furiously pumping elbows connect with the soft squishy flesh of a stomach. She quickly turned back so that she wouldn’t lose sight of her prey. She’d been chasing Santa Claus -- full out and non-stop -- for four blocks. Four blocks! And she was no closer to catching him now than she had been when he’d first run off.
“Shoot!” she muttered in dismay when she saw that he’d gained quite a bit of distance in just the few seconds it had taken her to turn her head. Her long, unbuttoned black leather coat flapped in the brutal wind in perfect sync with her long, black twisted hair as she forced her body to increase its speed. She could only imagine what she looked like, and was sure she’d have several phone calls from her family on her voicemail. As it was, her cell phone, tucked deep in her pocket and ignored, had already vibrated three separate times. She knew people were calling her family and they, in turn, were calling her.
This was not surprising in a town the size of Sheffield-Chatham, Illinois where her family had lived for several generations and was known throughout because of the sheer number of them. The only thing that was surprising was that no one had said anything to her, or tried to stop her. The historic downtown of the city was filled with holiday shoppers and business types and she was right in the middle of it, fiercely, and not to mention, determinedly, pursuing a Santa Claus.
“Why, Lily Carstairs! What on earth...?”
Thought too soon, Lily reflected as she turned to see one of her mother’s closest friends frowning at her. “Can’t explain now, Mrs. Johnson! I’m busy!” Right before she turned back to task, she saw Mrs. Johnson whip her cell phone out of her pocket. And less than sixty seconds later, as if on cue, her cell phone vibrated again.
She could not believe this was happening to her. Here she was blowing out her lungs and further damaging her already banged up right knee trying to keep up with a short fat man who had to be in his middle sixties if he was a day. She, on the other hand, was slim, almost thirty and in what she’d previously thought was reasonably good shape. And she wasn’t the one wearing a big red Santa suit. Yet, she was eating his dust.
Lily blinked snow from her eyes as she’d been doing the entire time she’d been chasing him. The snow ever thickening beneath her feet wasn’t helping her cause, either. Her boots were made for style rather than traction, and she wouldn’t be at all amazed if she suddenly fell and broke a limb in her efforts to keep up with Santa, whose unattractive, but practical boots were serving him just fine. It didn’t help that she was now running on cobblestones -- beautiful, but unforgivably hazardous.
Her eyes narrowed in disbelief as she watched Santa turn his head, find her gaze with his own twinkling one, grin and wink.
“Son of a --! Why, you little...” she panted between labored breaths.
Outraged, she put on a burst of speed, and then stared as he turned around and jogged backwards, giving her a mock scowl and moving his hand in an impatient, hurry-up gesture. He then turned back around, and elbows and legs moving in exaggerated slow motion, silently dared her to catch up with him.
Lily shook her head as she closed the distance and reached out, her gloved hand just missing a square of his red coat as he picked up his pace again. “Jesus!” she said around a mirthless chuckle and promised her suffering right knee that if it just held out a little longer, she’d never treat it in such a callous manner again.
“Mommy, that mean lady’s chasing Santa Claus!”
What’s it to you? Lily wanted to say to the child, who sounded downright appalled. She’d been chasing him for almost ten minutes at least, and she still couldn’t believe it herself. And when I catch the fat little bastard, I have every intention of having his holly-jolly ass thrown in jail!
Her energy and her spirits were seriously flagging, and Lily could think of nothing to do to raise them again. The deep breaths she began to take didn’t help, and in fact, only made her cough and feel sick.
Santa turned another corner, and automatically her eyes went to the street sign. Pine Avenue: the name struck a chord for some reason and Lily tried to figure out why. Oh, no! she thought and raising her wrist to eye level, shoved her coat sleeve back to look at her watch. It was 8:45. Damn it, she thought and took the corner herself, the old elf timed it perfectly.
Grimly, she looked a few feet down Pine Avenue, expecting to see exactly what she saw.
An enormous sea of undulating red and white fake fur.
“God damn it!” Lily gasped as she was forced to stop. She bent over, resting her hands on her knees. She tried to catch her breath, each exhalation increasing her ire as she glared resentfully at the scene in front of her. “God damn it, god damn it, GOD… DAMN… IT!”
There were at least a hundred and fifty men dressed in Santa Claus suits, all waddling toward the entrance to City Hall. And her Santa was somewhere lost in the vast Santa horde, which of course was exactly what he’d planned. Who the hell is this guy?
Every Saturday morning between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the mayor invited the volunteer Santa Clauses into City Hall for hot chocolate and pastries. One could also count on some citizens turning out as well. So, winded and disgusted, Lily just stared at them. Halfheartedly, she took her gaze searchingly over the crowd. Of course she didn’t see him.
She looked at her watch again. She only had a few minutes to get back to the office space she’d rented and officially open for business. Indecision crossed her face as she looked back at the crowd. In the end, she decided to go to her new digs, but that would be after she went back to her car and met with the police and after she went home for a quick shower and a change of clothes. She absolutely refused to sit around all day in sweaty clothes. She snorted. “As if.”
Chapter Three
“No, Mom, I’m fine,” Lily said into the telephone receiver as she continued to scan the phone book for insurance agencies. The book covered two other towns besides Sheffield-Chatham and was easier to use than trying to find them all on the Internet. Her goal was to get at least one or two of the firms to hire her on as an investigator. She circled the telephone numbers of the agencies she recognized and knew had decent sized staffs. She knew investigating suspected false claims wouldn’t be glamorous work, but it would at least bring in some money as she tried to make her way in the industry.
“Wait -- Mrs. Johnson told you what?” she stopped circling phones numbers long enough to listen to her mother. “Of course she’s lying, Mom. I did not tackle Santa Claus! I might have if I’d been able to catch up with him, probably would even have smushed the squirrelly little bastard’s ruddy-cheeked face in the snow,” she said in distraction as she went back to her task.
“Lily!” her mother said in surprise. “Surely you wouldn’t have -- ” there was a contemplative pause -- “well, yes...yes, I guess you might have at that,” she finished with more conviction in her voice.
“Certainly I would have. I have fifty thousand irritating male cousins. That means I learned to fight dirty with the best of them.”
Her mother made a tsk-tsk sound. “Don’t exaggerate. You don’t have that many. Anyway, I’m just calling to make sure you’re doing all right.”
“Other than wounded pride that I couldn’t catch him, a sore knee and a sudden realization that I need to do a better job of consistently working out, I’m peachy keen.”
“Oh, poor baby. Why don’t you come over later and let your father take a look at that knee? And then I’ll make up a nice ice pack for you.”
Lily quirked a brow. “Dad get a medical degree since the last time I saw him?”
“What? No, I…”
Lily laughed. Her mother was always angling to get her to come over. “Never mind, Mom. I’ll be over for Sunday dinner.”
Glenda Carstairs sighed. “Your father and I want you to come over and it doesn’t matter what day -- just so long as we see you once in a while. You promise you’ll be here Sunday?”
“I promise.”
“You’ll take care of that knee?”
“Done.”
“And you had your cousin Warren pick up the car and take it back to his body shop?”
“Yes, though I started not to, considering how he likes to fleece people, even those near and dear to him.”
“His father would make sure he doesn’t with you.”
“I’ll be sure to call Uncle Jett, then.”
“You do that. And you had your cousin John come out and take the police report?”
Lily frowned in confusion. “No, Mom. Why would I? He’s second in command. A patrolman came out and took it.”
“Well, did you at least call him and ask him to send out the best man for the job?”
For a cracked windshield? Lily rolled her eyes. “Ah, that would be a no. I did what other people do: put in a call to the cops and then waited for whoever was on call in that area to show up. The patrolman did everything he was supposed to do.”
“All right, if you’re sure.”
“I am, Mom, positive.”
“I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow then. Six o’clock. Did I mention that we’re having lamb? With asparagus, roasted potatoes and apple cobbler and cinnamon ice cream for dessert?”
Lily licked her lips. She hadn’t had a decent meal all week because she was a horrible cook. Her mother, on the other hand, cooked like it was something she was born to do. She knew that lamb was one of Lily’s favorites and had probably chose that dish specifically for tomorrow because in all her mother wisdom figured that Lily was half an excuse away from not showing up. She’d be right, Lily thought. I have good reason not to show up. I’m positive Smith will be there. What she said into the phone was, “Quit your torture, woman! I’ll be there; I promise!”
“Okay then sweetheart,” her mother said around amused laughter, “I’ll let you go. Love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom. Bye.” Lily hung up and humming, circled the last listing with a flourish. “Quincy!” she called to her cousin who was sitting in the outer office. “Get your lanky behind in here. I’ve got a job for you.”
Quincy poked his head into her office, a surprised look on his face. “What? A job for me? Dude!”
Lily turned a narrowed gaze on him. “You didn’t think I was going to let you just hang around, did you?” She picked up the phone book and tossed it to him, smiling when he barely managed to catch it when it fell against his narrow chest. “I’ve circled the names of insurance agents in there and I want you to do some research on them. Find out size, the kinds of claims they usually deal with, yearly revenue and who to contact regarding employment. Use that spankin’ new computer out there at the reception desk and make me a pretty little Excel spreadsheet.”
“But --”
“I circled some of them, but now that I think on it, you should just check them all out for me. I was trying to stay away from independent agents, but they actually might be my best bet for getting a job in the meantime in-between-time.”
She watched as her cousin’s young face fell in disappointment. He really had believed she’d let him just sit around all day and listen to his iPod or play on his iPad or whatever else he had planned to laze away his Christmas vacation from the local community college. She’d bet every last one of the hundreds of dreadlocks on his head that he had.
“Aw, come on, Lily! That’s so totally lame!”
She lifted a brow. “You haven’t heard? So totally lame is so totally in around here. Since you let the family convince you to insinuate yourself into my career, then you might as well be of some use to me. I haven’t hired a receptionist slash administrative assistant yet, so you can fill in until I do.”
“But, dude --”
“It’s either that or get out of here and report back to base that you failed in your initial reconnaissance.”
“Fine,” Quincy mumbled before stomping back out to the outer office.
Lily smiled and pushing her chair back from the desk, leaned back in it, satisfied that she’d extracted a small amount of revenge. She indulged herself in a glance around her office. The small room with its rich indigo walls and plush carpeting represented success after three long hard-working years of proving herself good enough to become a licensed private investigator in the state of Illinois.
She looked at her certificate which she’d framed and hung right next to her college degree. She shook her head. She’d gone to college and majored in education, knowing even then that she didn’t want to teach. But she’d gotten the degree because she knew that it was what her parents had wanted for her and because it was just the easy way out since she didn’t really know what she wanted. Her mother and two of her mother’s five sisters were teachers. There was an untapped wildness inside of her; Lily had always known it, just as her parents had. It had worried her, which was why she’d convinced herself that teaching was a good industry for her.
She’d barely lasted three years and for a year and a half after that, she’d bumped along from job to job trying to figure out what she wanted. She’d been living in Chicago since college and had a friend who was a Cook County state’s attorney. That friend had gotten her a data entry job in the State’s Attorney’s office. It was there that she’d met investigators who worked for the attorneys. She’d been fascinated and had transitioned from data entry to assistant in a private detective agency. It had become natural after that to seek her private detective’s license. And after three years at the large detective agency, she’d finally been eligible to sit for her license exam.
“And now I’m queen of the world,” she said with outstretched arms and a wide smile as she took a three hundred and sixty degree spin in the chair.
“Uh, cuz.”
Lily looked up to see Quincy standing at the entrance to her office with a woman she didn’t recognize.
“There’s someone here to see you,” he said with a smirk.
Unembarrassed, Lily stood with a smile and an outstretched hand. “Hello, I’m Lily Carstairs.”
Tall, rawboned and perhaps in her mid-forties, the woman answered Lily’s smile with a bemused frown and shook her hand. “Benson. Mrs. Lenora Benson.”
“Would you like to sit down?” Lily asked, stepping back and gesturing toward two chairs in front of her desk.
“I can offer you coffee, tea or bottled water,” Lily said once they were both sitting.
“Coffee, please,” Mrs. Benson said.
“Decaffeinated or regular?”
“Regular.”
“Hazelnut, Irish Crème, white chocolate, cherries jubilee?”
Looking surprised, Mrs. Benson hesitated before answering. “Uh, hazelnut.”
Lily smiled in relief, grateful the potential client didn’t request anything unflavored because that was the one kind she’d forgotten to get when shopping for her essentials. She picked up the desk phone and pressed the button for the receptionist, praying that Quincy would answer it. “Yes,” she said when he did. “Please bring in two cups of hazelnut coffee.” She was hopeful he’d bring it in on a tray with cream and sugar. That had been the only thing she’d had time to go over with him when they’d gotten to the office. The rest of the time she’d been taking the calls of nosey relatives.
“So, Mrs. Benson. What can I help you with today?”
Mrs. Benson took a picture frame out of her voluminous purse and slapped it face up on the desk. “That’s my husband Roy. I think the son of a bitch is cheating on me.”
Lily sat in the relative warm comfort of her cousin Tom’s old Chevy Chevette -- relative both in warmth and comfort. The car was more than twenty years old and a hideous green color that really offended her sense of taste, but she wasn’t complaining because at least now she didn’t have to worry about renting a car while her Fusion was in the shop.
She fiddled with the radio dial until she found a station that played hits from the nineties. Singing under her breath to the Beastie Boys, she tried not to wish too hard for her iPod.
She was parked in the lot of Barclay’s because that was where her first client wanted her to be. My first client. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten a client on her very first day on the job. “I guess the advertising must have paid off,” she said. Because she’d gotten her license long after telephone books had gone to print, she was too late to be listed, so she’d invested in some advertising. She’d bought a fifteen second spot on late night cable television and fifteen seconds on the all news radio station. She’d also set up a website, a Facebook page and a Twitter account. She’d have to ask Mrs. Benson where she’d heard about her the next time she saw her.
“I’ll have a questionnaire printed up for the office and I’ll put it on the website,” she murmured and grabbing her pad and pen, added that task to the growing list of things she had to do. She hummed as she did it, happier than she’d been in quite a long time. Her life finally seemed to be on track.
Lily closed her eyes, and for maybe the thousandth time, silently thanked her grandmother for her generosity. Lily was her only grandchild, and when Candace had decided three months before to pull up stakes and move to Chicago to live with Amelia Watley, she’d also decided to help Lily. Telling Lily that she’d rather see her happy while she was still alive, Candace had given her an early deposit on her inheritance. With it, Lily had been able to come home with a nice little nest egg after having spent all those years in Chicago working towards getting the license. Her grandmother’s gift had gone towards her license, an office in a decent part of downtown and her new car.
Candace was also allowing Lily to live in her house on Rowe Street, saying that it worked out perfectly because she’d be getting a free caretaker while Lily would have a place to stay. Though her grandmother had yet to cash it, Lily had sent her a monthly check for rent. She also managed the upkeep of the property and paid the utility bills. Her grandmother had always spoiled her, but as her only child’s only child, Lily was the light of Candace’s life.
Lily sighed. She was bored, but afraid to do anything but sit there and listen to her music. Reading was out and so was talking on her cell. She meant to do this right and didn’t want any screw-ups for her sake and the client’s. Mrs. Lenora Benson was the wife of an investment banker. Thrilled with getting an assignment, Lily hadn’t even taken offense when Mrs. Benson had condescendingly told her that the job was a simple one: follow Roy Benson, find out what he was doing when he wasn’t working or playing racquet ball, take plenty of pictures, report, report, report. She was to start immediately, and of course she’d be well compensated for her work.
“Just bring me proof that he’s cheating on me,” Mrs. Benson had said, “I do not plan to leave this marriage empty-handed.” Lily had dutifully taken notes and asked for more recent pictures than their ten-year old wedding photo.
And taking Mrs. Benson’s driver’s license, Lily had excused herself to go into the outer office where she’d given Quincy the password to a background service site she’d purchased a subscription to and told him to run a check on Mrs. Benson just so she could be sure the woman would be able to pay her bill. That taken care of, she’d handed Mrs. Benson a contract to sign. A fifteen hundred dollar retainer in the form of a cashier’s check or from a credit card was due up front, thank you very much, and have yourself a good day.
Right after her new client had left, Lily had pushed a nosy Quincy out of her office, throwing subtlety and cunning to the wind and telling him to “get lost.” She’d strapped on her stun gun and her pepper spray, hot-tailed it by taxi to her cousin’s house to borrow the car and then had made her way over to Sheffield-Chatham’s only country club where she’d waited two and a half hours for Benson to come out. He’d left the club and had come to work, where she’d dutifully followed him.
The only problem was she hadn’t planned her little stake out at all well. She hadn’t eaten and her bladder was fast approaching the point of no return. Lily looked around, wishing she had the guts to make use of the bushes to her right. Besides her car, there was Mr. Benson’s Mercedes S10 and an old clunker that she assumed belonged to another employee from the building. She knew it didn’t belong to the lone security guard because he was her fifth cousin -- something like fifty times removed -- and he rode the bus or had his mom drive him wherever he wanted to go.
She also knew that he was lazy, a bully and mad with perceived power. Hence the reason she didn’t simply go in and ask if she could use the facilities to empty her bladder and stay warm. Her cousin would see that as a breech of protocol and would use a long, drawn out lecture to say no. Adding to that, he’d blab it to the family and by the time she got to her parents for Sunday dinner, she and her “nutty” career choice would be skewered over rack of lamb.
She frowned. She loved her family but they were over-protective, raucous and more than a little intrusive. Her conversation with her father that afternoon was a prime example. He’d actually tried to make her hire Quincy, insisting that he’d pay the teenager’s salary. She’d refused, knowing that they’d use him to spy on her. While her refusal hadn’t fallen on deaf ears, it had been talked over in favor of another suggestion. “Hire one of John’s retired cop friends to work with me? The very idea gives me shudders,” Lily muttered in disgust as she thought of her cousin and all of his macho fellow cops. “I really should have stayed in Chicago.”
But as much as she loved the windy city on the lake, she had really missed Sheffield-Chatham, and if she were honest, her family even more.
Another car pulled into a slot next to her, and Lily turned to look. It was a black BMW. Nice, she thought, very nice. The sky was already an inky winter dark, but the overhead lights helped her to make out the other driver’s features. His face would never be considered handsome, but it was interesting with its high forehead, dark eyes, square jaw and full lips. The scar that curved from his hairline to end beneath his right brow only served to make his face look more interesting. She studied the black hair that was too long to be considered fashionable, and then lifted a brow inquiringly when he looked over at her.
Taking a page from Santa’s book, Lily stuck both her middle fingers straight up in the air and wanting the new arrival to see them clearly, shoved them toward her passenger side window.
Chapter Four
All doubt that Lily Carstairs was sitting in a car two spaces over fled Smith’s mind when she gave him the finger. “That little hell cat will never change,” he muttered with a shake of his head as he fixed his old cowboy hat on his head. He took off his seat belt and prepared to leave his car. When his foot hit the pavement, he heard the definite snick of locking car doors and frowned. She did it to irritate him, he knew, but he was more annoyed that they hadn’t already been locked. “Little fool,” he said aloud and kept his determined stride to her car.
He knocked on the passenger side window. “Are you going to open this door willingly, or am I going to have to make you?”
Lily didn’t even bother to look at him. “Sorry, do I know you?”
Smith laughed, appreciating her mean streak. “Oh, yeah, sweetness,” he told her, “better than most.”
The innuendo in that statement had her whipping her head around and scowling at him. She stared at him in disbelief for a moment and then seemed to pull herself together. “Fuck off, Smith,” she said calmly before turning away again.
“Jesus, you can hold a grudge,” he muttered as he tried to see what was so damned interesting in her lap. All he could tell was that she was writing something. He knocked on the window again and was ignored.
“All right, Lily,” he continued to speak in a voice loud enough for her to hear through the window. “I tried to do this the easy, adult way, but we’ll just have to try it your way. If you don’t open this door right now, I’m going to put in a call to the police about a suspicious vehicle that’s been sitting in this parking lot for hours. Your cover will be blown, and that will be all she wrote for your little stakeout.”
Again, she whipped her head around to look at him with a scowl on her face. He grinned and she scowled harder before slowly reaching over to unlock the passenger side door for him.
“Now, that’s more civilized,” he said as he settled his long frame into the seat and shut the door. “It’s good to see you, Lily-bud. How have you been?” He studied her. It had been four years since he’d seen her, but she still looked good enough to eat. He’d always loved that long, skinny body of hers, which she covered in nothing but stylish clothes that flattered it. Now she wore slim black pants, a red, cable knit turtleneck sweater and a black leather jacket. He took in her hair. The long dark locks still looked thick and lush. It was definitely hair a man could bury his hands in while burying his -- Smith hurriedly put the brakes on that particular thought. Now was not the time for that. Lily would likely spit in his face if she knew he was even thinking about making love to her.
She wouldn’t look at him, but Smith knew those tawny brown eyes of hers were flashing fire and anger was adding a bit of muted pink to her light brown cheeks. “It’s been a mighty long time, but you’re still looking as good as ever, Lily.” He grinned again. “What? No hug for your old friend?” he asked pleasantly.
“Sometimes I just want to punch your face in.”
Throwing his head back, Smith laughed. “Still got that not-so realized violent streak, I see.”
Lily’s gust of a sigh filled the car. “What do you want, Smith?”
“I’m just checking up on you, is all. Your mom told me about this latest wild hare of yours and I was curious.” Her decision to become a private detective had come out of nowhere and seemed to have surprised everyone except him. She’d always had a certain wildness that she’d tried to tamp down, but needed to channel instead. He’d been out of touch with things for several years, but he’d always expected that he’d someday hear about some wild thing Lily had done when she finally broke out of those self-imposed constraints.
She’d apparently kept her plan to become a private detective a secret from everyone except her grandmother until it was time for her to sit for the exam. Given the overprotective and interfering quality of her family he didn’t blame her. His problem with her choice was that he didn’t know if she’d be any good at it, and therefore, safe. He’d been a P.I. for five years and it wasn’t an easy career.
“How did you know where to find me?” she asked and he heard the resentment in her tone.
“I had dinner with your folks and they told me, and if you’re wondering how they knew, your cousin Bill told them. He called them when he noticed you sitting out here for so long. He watched you pull up.”
He smiled when she put her head on the steering wheel with a strangled sound of frustration. “What? You should be glad to have a family that loves you so much.”
“Go away, Smith. I don’t want to deal with you right now.”
“Aw, come on, sweetness. It’s been four whole years after all.”
“Four years away from you weren’t enough. Do me a favor and make it four more, huh?”
“Okay, clearly, you don’t know how to let go of old issues.”
“Oh, please,” she muttered derisively. “Don’t try to minimize what you did. You seduced me and then you disappeared -- never to be heard from again. Well, that’s what I wanted the most anyway. But here you are, turning up like a bad smell, proving once again that Jagger and his boys were right.”
Smith scowled even as he had to struggle not to laugh. Lily had always been a wise ass. It was one of his favorite things about her. Her stubbornness and her ability to make him feel guilty, however, were not. The scowl won out. “If you’d get over your resentment for five fucking minutes, you’d see that I’m here to help you,” he snapped quietly, hating to be reminded of his bad behavior.
Lily smirked and he could tell that she’d gotten exactly the reaction she’d wanted. “I don’t need your help, Smith, so take your offer and get lost.”
“Look, Lily -- ”
“No, you look! I don’t want you anywhere near me, understand? I don’t care that my parents or your parents asked you to look out for me. I can take care of myself.”
Smith cringed. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears, and he’d never been able to withstand her tears. “Lily, I --”
“Get out, get out, get out!” she suddenly said in a panicked whisper that got louder with each successive command, and she was pushing at him now. He was shocked when she reached across his chest to actually open the door, all while pushing at his shoulder with her other hand. Smith grabbed at her, but astonishment and his awkward position hampered his reflexes and he couldn’t quite catch hold. Before he knew it, he found himself hanging out of the opened door and if he hadn’t caught himself and hurriedly stood, he’d have found his ass hitting the pavement.
Lily started the car and he realized her attention wasn’t even focused on him. He looked behind him to where her gaze was directed and watched as a dumpy little man in an expensive suite walked to a Mercedes. He realized her target had arrived. It wasn’t until both cars had pulled out of the lot that he woke up from his stupor.
“Shit!” he muttered with disgust and rushed towards his car. “What the hell am I doing just standing here like a frigging idiot?” He searched his pocket for his keys, swearing when they slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground. “Fuck!” After picking them up and hurriedly unlocking the door, he jumped into his car and peeled out of the lot, hoping that he was in time to catch up with them. He’d promised her parents he wouldn’t let her get hurt.
“The little pain in the ass,” he said aloud as he drove and searched the streets frantically for the eyesore Lily was driving. There was no sign of either car. He screeched through a yellow light that was rapidly turning red and then had to brake for a jaywalker who was crossing in the middle of the street. “Hey!” he yelled out the window. “I don’t see any bumpers on your ass, pal!” For the second time in an hour, Smith was flipped the bird.